How was Palpatine a traitor to the Republic? Was it because he was a darkside user, or for other reasons? Also, Dooku did not betray the Jedi. I remember him being a former Jedi from watching episode 2, but I don't remember him betraying the Jedi or his best friend. What was that?

How was Palpatine a traitor to the Republic? Was it because he was a darkside user, or for other reasons? Also, Dooku did not betray the Jedi. I remember him being a former Jedi from watching episode 2, but I don't remember him betraying the Jedi or his best friend. What was that?

How was PALPATINE A TRAITOR!!!???? He was the elected leader of the Republic, and decided to wage a 3 year war against it, not the mention ordered his troops to betray and murder the peacekeeping Jedi whom had been sworn to defend the Republic for millennia, that's how he's a traitor.

He also conspired with Dooku and the Seperatists to start a revolt against the Republic. He even talked them into creating their droid armies so that he would have an excuse to unleash his battalion of clonetroopers upon the galaxy.

Whether or not he was a traitor isn't relevant for a legal debate; legally, there was no proof that Palpatine was Darth Sidious. And as such legally, the Jedi launched a military coup with the intention of imposing a theocracy upon the galaxy. Was it right? Maybe. But they were planning said coup, and the removal of the Senate, before they found out about him being a Sith, which is even less right.

There are legal mechanisms to remove nutters. Votes of no confidence, for example. Or votes to remove his emergency powers.

If the Jedi couldn't muster the political support to remove Palpatine legally, then obviously he is popular enough that the government and the people, of whom the Jedi claim to be the guardians of, want Palpatine to stay, his religious persuasion being irrelevant. That he was responsible for the majority of the corruption and of course the war isn't a failure of the people, it's a failure of the Jedi to stop it happening in the first place, before he was elected.

Was it unjust? Well the first thing we have to do is remove ourselves from the movies and what we know about the war. You have too look at it strictly from the p.o.v. of the Republic. Here you have thousands of solar systems (as per AOTC) leaving or saying they are going to leave your republic. Their main reason is that the Republic has become corrupt. However, if you look at the main players in the Seperatist movement, they are all the big Economic Power Houses of the Republic. ie the Trade Fed, the Banking Clan, The Trans Union etc etc. They are probably the biggest benefactors of the corruption in the Republic as they are the motivators behind the bureaucrats intrusion into government affairs (as we saw in TPM). So from the standpoint of the Republic the reasoning of the Seperatists is suspicious and misleading to the systems that are being convinced by those Economic Power Houses to leave.
So the Republic is trying to keep the Republic together, also in the opening crawl of AOTC it mentions that the Seperatists have made it hard for the Jedi to keep peace and order, which suggests that there is outbreaks of violence in the galaxy. Also pointing to this is the fact that there was such a small number of Jedi in the Temple when it was time to mount the rescue attempt on Geonosis, as the Jedi were spread out.
Now you also have the Jedi telling the Republic that they are not Soldiers, they are keepers of the peace. So now you have thousands of systems leaving or attempting to leave the Republic, outbreaks of violence throughout the Republic, and the Organization that the Republic has been depending on to protect them for thousands of years telling them they can't (or won't) protect them in case of hostilities breaking out. Which led to the Military Creation Act which is what Padme was returning to Coruscant to vote against on (she had hoped for more diplomacy). So obviously the Republic was being told that there could be Hostilities on the horizon.
Now, with all this going on, a nosey Jedi discovers that the Seperatists have aligned themselves with the Geonosians and they have created and continue to create a Droid Army. Obviously the Seperatists aren't looking forward to diplomacy. Nosey Jedi gets caught, silly rescue attempt fails, and 2 Jedi and a Republic Senator are sentenced to Death. The Jedi Order mounts a rescue attempt, in which the Jedi give Dooku a chance to let the prisoners go, to which Dooku refuses, and the Seperatists Fire the first Shots of the Clone Wars.

So I think in the mind of the Republic they were Justified in fighting the Clone Wars. They were trying to keep their Republic together, and thousands of systems out of the Hands of the Big Bad Corporations.
The problem was they and the seperatists were both being manipulated by one person.

There's a lot more to it than that. They're wanting him to "give his power back to the Senate" (since, thanks to the Emergency Powers from AoTC, he's wielding far more power than any previous Supreme Chancellor). And they know he's "Managed to stay in power long after his term limit has expired" (due to crisis, elections were postponed- Palpatine is only allowed to serve 2 terms).

They'd have asked him to step down- and removed him if he didn't- even if he wasn't Sith.

Him being Sith means that (since there's only 2 as far as they know) - he's Dooku's co-conspirator in perpetrating the Clone Wars. Among other things.

Yeah, the jedi were trying to impose theocracy upon the Republic, I noticed that from the films a little bit. They didn't want Palpatine as ruler simply because he was a Sith.

Long live Emperor Mace (or Yoda)! I'd be curious to see how a theocracy would work since the Jedi don't seem to "worship" the Force but follow its will for harmony and balance, achieved or not.

From our (us real world folks) perspective, Sids was a traitor and inciting violence against his own government is almost certainly illegal. In the GFFA, one might make an argument that there was no proof and it was a Jedi coup.

The Order may have had to take control of the Senate in the short term (and before anyone says it, yes, they MIGHT not have relinquished power but that is not what I think) but they clearly - to ME - intended to give it back once "order" was restored. As to whether or not that was the correct and/or wise thing to do is certainly debatable - would there have been other options?

Certainly, the intent to arrest Palapatine and have him face trial seemed prudent, knowing what we fans of the movie know.

In the EU the Jedi have faced the "what to do about a corrupt government" issue in the past. Pius Dea, for example. It usually involved them, reluctantly, stepping in- but not holding power long- setting somebody else up. The only period where the Jedi themselves held political power for any length of time was the New Sith Wars- 2000-1000 BBY.

One must keep in mind, that the Jedi Council had limited prescience and Mace Windu sensed there was a plot to destroy the Jedi. In the war that lead up to the Ruusan Reformation against the Sith, the Republic had outlawed the Sith religion. The Republic did not have America's first amendment protecting freedom of religion, guided by the Jedi they saw the Sith belief as a dangerous force (no pun intended) and took legislative action to forbid it in Republic space and to allow the Jedi and military to hunt down Sith. By being a Sith Lord, Palpatine was legally an enemy of the state, and therefore unfit to be in office, and as Mace saw, too dangerous to be left alive.

It was clear to the Jedi at that point that Palpatine had orchestrated the war on both sides, playing a strategy to prolong the war until his powerbase was secure. When he was ready to take power -- he ended the war suddenly and decisively, something he could have done at any time but instead arranged a long stalemate with neither side gaining much ground -- the Republic losses at a point where they would grant him more and more executive power but not so bad that he would be removed from office.

If this were real world terms it would have been if George W. Bush (Palpatine) secretly directed Osama Bin Laden (Dooku) (trained by Americans to fight the Soviets remember) to launch an attack on the United States that would result in a long war where sweeping legislation would be passed and sweeping powers given to the executive branch and using the crisis be elected to an unconstitutional Third Term. Upon discovering the plot the Joint Chiefs and Flag Officers (Jedi) would have to move quickly to take him out of office -- a Justifiable coup as the executive had clearly committed treason.

The Jedi HAD to move against the Chancellor, but Palpatine knew they would and had arranged for them to do so to justify issuing Order 66. The Jedi were maneuvered into an unwinnable situation. There was only one wild card: Anakin Skywalker. Darth Sidious had been working for about a decade and a half to get Anakin under his sway, and Palpatine did not make his move until he was certain he had him. Mace had outdueled him had the Sith Lord dead to rights, and Anakin Skywalker held the balance of the galaxy in his hands, and chose darkness.

One must keep in mind, that the Jedi Council had limited prescience and Mace Windu sensed there was a plot to destroy the Jedi. In the war that lead up to the Ruusan Reformation against the Sith, the Republic had outlawed the Sith religion. The Republic did not have America's first amendment protecting freedom of religion, guided by the Jedi they saw the Sith belief as a dangerous force (no pun intended) and took legislative action to forbid it in Republic space and to allow the Jedi and military to hunt down Sith. By being a Sith Lord, Palpatine was legally an enemy of the state, and therefore unfit to be in office, and as Mace saw, too dangerous to be left alive.

It was clear to the Jedi at that point that Palpatine had orchestrated the war on both sides, playing a strategy to prolong the war until his powerbase was secure. When he was ready to take power -- he ended the war suddenly and decisively, something he could have done at any time but instead arranged a long stalemate with neither side gaining much ground -- the Republic losses at a point where they would grant him more and more executive power but not so bad that he would be removed from office.

If this were real world terms it would have been if George W. Bush (Palpatine) secretly directed Osama Bin Laden (Dooku) (trained by Americans to fight the Soviets remember) to launch an attack on the United States that would result in a long war where sweeping legislation would be passed and sweeping powers given to the executive branch and using the crisis be elected to an unconstitutional Third Term. Upon discovering the plot the Joint Chiefs and Flag Officers (Jedi) would have to move quickly to take him out of office -- a Justifiable coup as the executive had clearly committed treason.

The Jedi HAD to move against the Chancellor, but Palpatine knew they would and had arranged for them to do so to justify issuing Order 66. The Jedi were maneuvered into an unwinnable situation. There was only one wild card: Anakin Skywalker. Darth Sidious had been working for about a decade and a half to get Anakin under his sway, and Palpatine did not make his move until he was certain he had him. Mace had outdueled him had the Sith Lord dead to rights, and Anakin Skywalker held the balance of the galaxy in his hands, and chose darkness.

What if Palps was a sith lord but didn't do anything bad and was peaceful?

The Seperatists was one of the worst things about the prequels. There should've been an invasion to another galaxy, where anakin and obi wan have to travel to another galaxy to fight bad guys, and it's the main star war of the trlogy and the crisis that Palps uses to get power. Nute gunray should've had a way better character history, and should've been a guy from another galaxy.